A Review of Methods for the Reliability Testing of Flexible Hybrid Electronics

This article presents an overview of testing methods applied to flexible hybrid electronics (FHE). It starts by briefly summarizing and discussing the main properties of substrates, chips, and materials commonly used for flip-chip bonding of FHE. It also describes general accelerated testing methods and how they are related to the current progress in FHE testing. Stressors, such as temperature cycling, temperature/humidity, bending, stretching, and torsion, have been commonly applied to FHE. The application of those stressors and the corresponding failure modes, mechanisms, and factors that impact reliability is summarized and discussed. Methods for testing the reliability of FHE devices, such as radio frequency identification (RFID) tags, have been developed, but there are no industry-wide standards yet to address all aspects of this emerging technology.